South Africa’s Competition Commission is set to receive the biggest cut of the R1.07 billion budget of the economic development department, MPs were told on Thursday.
Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel tabled his department’s 2017/2018 budget vote in Parliament, where he revealed the Competition Commission would receive R282 million for the year ahead, the small enterprise finance agency would get R229 million, and R240 million, raised from the construction industry, would go to the “new Tirisano Fund, to finance transformation, including support for black artisans and engineers, small builders and infrastructure”.
The department would receive R140 million so it could “unblock investment, provide oversight of agencies and support the alignment of policy”.
The International Trade Administration Commission will be allocated R102 million, which would go towards funding investigations and putting in place systems needed for import and export controls.
The Competition Tribunal is allocated R35mln, while R15mln would be used to “monitor the spending and construction in the State’s infrastructure plan”.
A total of R30 million will be transferred to the Steel Competitiveness Fund, meant to help qualifying firms to, among others, modernise and upgrade machinery and equipment, expand the capacity of existing plants, and develop and test prototypes, in the wake of huge job losses in the industry. (via African News Agency)
